


Animal City

by Edonohana



Category: Zoo City - Lauren Beukes
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collage of found writing from the City of Angels... and Animals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Animal City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soupytwist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupytwist/gifts).



**Article, _Los Angeles Weekly._**

“Animalled Veterans Face an Uncertain Future.”

The group for Animalled veterans meets in an unmarked room at the Westwood Veteran’s Administration, between a bathroom and a broom closet. The symbolism doesn’t escape either the veterans or their therapist, Thomas Gonsiorek.

“The government doesn’t know what to do with these soldiers,” Gonsiorek says flatly. “Look at all the different regulations they’ve had since the Shift: aposymbiote soldiers get a dishonorable discharge, aposymbiote soldiers get an honorable discharge, they get desk jobs, they get sent back to the front, they get sent to a hospital, they get sent to jail. It’s a disability. It’s a crime. It’s a physical manifestation of PTSD.”

The veterans, accompanied by Siamese Cats and Yorkshire Terriers and Sparrows and Coatimundis and Javelinas and Praying Mantises and even a Minnow in a covered goldfish bowl, voice and nod their agreement.

John Remic, a burly man with a Field Mouse peeking out of his shirt pocket, says, “I knew a guy who got Animalled the first time he fired his gun. He should have been sent back home – he got a Grizzly Bear. That fucker was huge. But the other thing he got was, he could sniff out IEDs. He lasted three days before a sniper shot his Grizzly. But you look at me and my Mouse – there’s no reason not to send us back.”

He holds out his hand, and a flame lights itself in his palm. He closes his fist, snuffing it out.

Remic continues, “Sure, it’s not that useful. But no sniper’s ever going to take out my Mouse. Why not let me go back?”

Tim Warren, the guy with the Minnow, says, “Some guys get Animalled and no one ever knows. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

This is apparently a topic of lively interest to the veterans, because several start talking at once, either mocking the entire idea or discussing rumors of soldiers with Tapeworms and Lice.

When it dies down, I speak for the first time. “Why do you think some people get Animalled, and some don’t?”

It’s the million dollar question. Murderers get Animalled. Except when they don’t. The presence or absence of an Animal cannot be taken as evidence of guilt or innocence. At least, that’s the instruction given to the jury. Soldiers get Animalled for killing civilians, or killing enemies, or standing next to a buddy who gets shot and feeling guilty. But not all of them, not always. Animalling is proof of nothing more than guilt over a death. Except that some Animalled people claim to feel no guilt whatsoever.

A death is necessary, but not always sufficient. That’s really all we know. But everyone’s got an opinion. I expected the same hubbub to result as when Warren suggested secret zoos, but instead, there’s a dead silence.

Finally, Carolyn Pineda speaks. She’s a small woman with a prosthetic hand and a Python. “Why do some of us get Animals, and some of us don’t? Why do some of us get PTSD, and some of us don’t? Why did Gomez lose his leg on his first tour, and Rinaldi her arm on her third, and Chen got through six tours and then got killed on the freeway right here in LA? Why did Castillo get taken by the Undertow when she and her Weasel got hit, and I wasn’t even scratched, when I was standing right next to her?”

Pineda doesn’t raise her voice, but the Python coiled around her arm lifts its head, and I can’t help edging my chair back. “You answer me that, and I’ll tell you why I have an Animal and every American who supported this fucking war doesn’t.”

  


 **Cover copy for _Animalled_ , a YA novel by Taylor Louise Williams. **

_Every night, I have the same dream._

 _A dream where I still have both my eyes._

 _A dream where my face doesn’t make me want to puke._

 _A dream where I don’t have Crow._

 _A dream where I didn’t kill my sister._

Sixteen-year-old Amber was depressed. Her boyfriend had dumped her. Her grades were plummeting. Her parents were angry. One night she locked herself in the garden shed and set it on fire. Her identical twin sister Amy tried to save her. Amber made it. Amy didn’t.

Now Amber has a scarred face, a Crow on her shoulder, and a burden of guilt and grief too heavy to bear alone. With the help of Aiden, the new boy in school, and his Hawk, can Amber find the strength to face her past and forge a new future?

  


 **Twitter feed for MelodyYoshida.**

@SweetSaturday Your cousin has an Elephant!? How does he go anywhere? Or does he ride it? LOL!

  


 **Student paper, typed (excerpt).**

"Healing the Fat-Her Wound, Emb(race)ing the Anima-l: a (trans)figu(Rat)ive approach to (trans)forming our transphobic, homophobic, fatphobic, racist, sexist, classist, ableist, misogynist, kyriarchical, and Animalevolent society."

Dialectical critical realism may be seen under the (Asp)ect of Foucauldian st(Rat)egic reversal — of the unholy trinity of Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean provenance; of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-K(Ant)ian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and ir(Rat)ionalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in (trans)figu(Rat)ive reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundaments of positivism through its (trans)(Mutt)ation route to the superidealism of a Baudrillard.

  


 **Letter, printed on lined paper.**

DEAR AUNTY

I AM FINE. THANK YOU FOR WRITING. THANK YOU FOR THE COOKIES. THEY WERE GOOD. I LIKE OUTMEAL BETTER THEN PENUT BUTTER. YOU ASKED IF I LIKE IT HERE. I LIKE IT HERE. I MISS YOU. ~~I MISS MOMMY~~. I LIKE DADDYS SQUIRREL. DADDY TOLD ME HOW TO SPELL SQUIRREL. HE IS CUTE AND GRAY. I WANT MY OWN ANIMAL SOMDAY. DADDY SAYS MAYBE.

LOVE JAMES

  


 **Letter, handwritten on both sides of a piece of paper printed with maple leaves.**

My darling Jen,

It was cold and cloudy when I woke up, but the sun came out by mid-morning, as I was drinking chamomile tea from the mug you made. By mid-day it was hot, and Gecko and I walked to Pazzo Gelato. No one gave us a second glance. I’m lucky Gecko’s so small – he perches on my collar, and my hair covers him.

Pazzo still has all the fancy flavors you loved – caramel rose, toasted almond fig, avocado with cayenne (ugh), sapodilla. What is sapodilla? I got a cappuccino and a scoop of dulce de leche. Boring, I know.

I listened in on the thoughts of a few passersby while I ate my gelato. I get migraines if I never do it at all, and it seems less intrusive if I only do it to people whom I’ll never see again. If you had asked me before what I thought it would feel like to hear the random thoughts of strangers, I would have told you it would be tedium punctuated with TMI. It’s not like that at all. Even the most mundane images are backed by layers and layers of depth and wonder, beauty and raw emotion. I’ll try to recreate what I saw in a few seconds’ visit into the mind of the girl who just walked out:

\- Annoyed realization that she forgot her phone.

\- Appreciation of the easy movement and strength of her own body as she walks.

\- The kinesthetic sense of herself walking, forward movement, her arms swinging freely, her feet hitting the ground.

\- A snatch of recalled music from the radio: a woman’s sweet voice and the crunch of electric guitar.

\- The sight of the window of Pazzo Gelato.

\- A fragment of sexual fantasy: she is standing up against the wall in a crowded, noisy nightclub, with her skirt pushed up. A man has two fingers inside her. She is relishing the sensation, and the thought that anyone might suddenly notice what they’re doing. Simultaneously, she is imagining being the man. He is so turned on just by touching her that he is struggling not to come then and there. He shifts to relieve the pressure of his cock against his jeans.

\- The taste and feel of gelato in her mouth, the sweet soft cold richness of caramel and the sharp crunch of sea salt.

\- The harsh smell of spilled gasoline.

\- The warmth of sunlight on her hair and the prickling beginning of sweat on her back.

I feel guilty for loving this gift so much, when it came at such a price. Ironic, when it was guilt that gave it to me. Or was it? Have we misunderstood the meaning of Animals and the strange talents that come with them? Are they really embodiments of guilt or grief? Or are they given to us to help us survive that guilt, that grief?

If you had asked me before what I thought it would be like to lose you, I would have said I wouldn’t want to go on living. If I hadn’t gotten Gecko, would that have been true?

Tonight I’m going to finally show up at that group my therapist keeps recommending. I’ll even pull my hair back, and let everyone admire Gecko’s beautiful eyes.

The coffee is getting cold, and I’m done with the gelato. When Gecko and I get home, we’ll burn this letter and send the smoke up to you, with all our love.

Forever yours,

Ruth

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the terrible student paper is original, but its opening paragraph is taken from Roy Bhaskar's _Plato etc: The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution_ (Verso, 1994), as found at http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm (The Bad Writing Contest for academic writing.) I added a few parentheses and capital letters, and one small t, but it is otherwise unaltered.


End file.
